System Center Guide

Microsoft has announced the Release Candidate for #DPM2010 is now available. Read Jason Buffingtons blog for details or just go get it!

I just heard from Jason Buffington, the System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) Sr. Technical Product Manager at Microsoft, that the release candidate for DPM 2010 is “baked” and should be available for download in the next couple of days. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a couple new products RTM at MMS this year.

Having been a part of the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) since its inception as the SMS Users Conference in 1999, I feel somewhat qualified to speak to it’s history and trends. This annual event has allowed Microsoft and the partner ISV community to showcase their wares to thousands of attendees. In fact, many partners admit that a significant portion of their annual revenues come from the weeks and months following MMS.

Now those of you that know me well, can attest that I’m not a betting man. In fact, in all the years that MMS has been hosted in Las Vegas I’ve gambled no more than a total of $100. However, if I were a betting man, I would wager that this year Microsoft will Release-to-Manufacturing (RTM) the highly anticipated System Center Service Manager product. This would fall in line with how they announced the System Center brand and the subsequent release of Operations Manager 2007.

Some of you will recall that Microsoft attempted to release this product into beta as “Service Desk” back in 2007. However, the community was so disappointed with the Microsoft’s efforts on the product that they decided to pull it back and start completely over from scratch. Now, nearly 3 years later, with the product re-written and re-named it is quickly approaching its anticipated release schedule (1st Half, 2010) and is being welcomed much more favorably than the previous attempt. That is partly due to the true ITIL model that it follows, its asset management capabilities and integration points between the other System Center solutions.

So, will Microsoft finally get this product out the door at MMS 2010? Time will tell, but if you’re going to wager on it, I’d go all in if I were you.

Microsoft has just released the Reporting Dashboard beta for SCCM. This dashboard lets customers utilize a browser based graphically rich reporting experience that showcases the robust reporting capabilities of the world’s leading system management product. The dashboard will help you stay informed of application and operating system deployments, security updates, system health status and more; whether on the plasma screen in your operations center, or your administrative desktop.

Find out more from the System Center team blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2010/02/02/system-center-configuration-manager-reporting-dashboard-beta-released.aspx

The Active Directory team has just released an updated version of the Operations Management Pack for Active Directory (version 6.0.7050.0).  This latest update includes:

• Support for Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Additional support for:
  • Active Directory Web Services (ADWS) for Windows Server 2008 R2;
  • Active Directory Management Gateway Service for Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, and Windows Server 2008.
• Updates to existing functionality around:
  • Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 migration;
  • Monitoring of operations master roles (also known as flexible single master operations (FSMO) roles);
  • Enhanced performance monitors, and log size and database size monitors.
• A revamped deployment and usage guide.

Users of Operations Manager 2007 R2 can download this directly from the online MP service via the integrated MP download wizard.  Alternatively the MP can be downloaded from here or via the Operations Manager MP Catalog.

Finding our console growing with numerous collections and advertisements related to single-instance software distributions to a named device, I wanted a process to follow that would permit automated “cleansing” of the console. The script should not only remove the collections, but also the associated advertisements. After searching the net for something to repurpose, I ended up putting this one together from scratch.

It requires the sitecode be changed and a command line argument for the search criteria (i.e. wscript c:\windows\DelCollAdv.vbs “System :”). Also, because I’m not specifying the remote server name, it has to be run local to the SMS provider or the “Set WbemServices” line needs to be updated to include the remote host name.

NOTE: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. TEST IN A NON-PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT. THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES.

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Option Explicit

Dim loc
Set loc = CreateObject(“WbemScripting.SWbemLocator”)

Dim WbemServices
Set WbemServices = loc.ConnectServer( ,”root\SMS\site_ABC”)

Dim Collection
Dim Collections

Dim strCollection
Dim strCollectionID

Dim Advertisement
Dim Advertisements

strCollection = Wscript.Arguments(0)

Set Collections = WbemServices.ExecQuery(“select * from SMS_Collection where name like ‘%” & strCollection & “%’”)

For Each Collection In Collections
strCollectionID = Collection.CollectionID
‘MsgBox “Got collection: ” + Collection.CollectionID

Set Advertisements = WbemServices.ExecQuery(“select * from SMS_Advertisement where CollectionID = “”" & strCollectionID & “”"”)
‘On Error Resume Next
For Each Advertisement in Advertisements
MsgBox “About to Delete: ” & Advertisement.AdvertisementName & “. To cancel, kill the wscript process from TaskMgr.”
Advertisement.Delete_
Next
‘On Error Goto 0
Collection.Delete_
Next

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In today’s economy, more than ever, IT Pro’s are looking for ways to reduce costs while still improving existing processes or fixing things that aren’t meeting expectations – including backup.  In this session, Jason Buffington, Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation, will discuss legacy protection solutions for backup, disk-to-disk replication, and long-distance disaster recovery  — and how you can cut costs while gaining better backups and more reliable recoveries with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007.

Register from the link below:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032412440

The next System Center Virtual User Group meeting #6 will be May 21st, 12 noon central start time. We have a good mix of SCCM and Operations Manager presentations.

Agenda (Central Time Zone)

Registration

We have an excellent line up for this meeting so join us by registering here. http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=138017

PC Audio only

Audio will only be available through Live Meeting.

Presenter Bios

Steve Rachui – Microsoft

Steve Rachui is a Manageability Support Escalation Engineer in the Product Support Services group at Microsoft. Steve was also a tech reviewer for the upcoming ‘SCCM Unleashed’ book. He has supported SMS since version 1.2. Steve can be reached via his supportability blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/steverac/.

Baelson Duque – Senior Program Manager – Microsoft
Baelson Duque started at Microsoft a Systems Engineer and shortly thereafter, became a Tools Engineer building tools for Microsoft Game Studios Operations team. Baelson pioneered MOM as the Operations Monitoring Platform. Baelson is has been a proud member of the Operations Manager Program Management team for 7 years bringing with him over 5 years of Operational Expertise from many levels in the IT Operations stack. Baelson is currently the PM Project Lead for OpsMgr 2007 R2 and working on “Bringing Easy Back” to Management Pack Authoring for the next release of Operations Manager (OM 10).

Thank you for your continued support!

Scott Moss

president – System Center Virtual User Group

vice president – Atlanta Systems Management User Group

There are many occassions where we want to install software on only particular platforms such as desktops, laptops or servers. By using a combination of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, we can make this happen. Sadly, however, this hasn’t been very well documented and put into a step-by-step guide, so I’ve done that here.

The following 20 steps are what it takes to get Configuration Manager to use the MDT variables isDesktop, isLaptop, and isServer during an operating system deployment task sequence. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

1.  Download Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008, Update 1.
2.  Install MDT to site server.
3.  From the Start menu, select Microsoft Deployment Toolkit | Configure ConfigMgr Integration.
4.  Create a package for the toolkit using the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit \Templates\Distribution” folder as the package source. No program needed – just create the package.
5.  Configure your packages distribution points, as normal.
6.  In the Task Sequence Editor, click Add | MDT | Use Toolkit Package. Select the package that you created in step 4.
7.  Move this task between Install Operating System and Setup Operating System.
8.  Again, click Add | MDT | Gather.
9.  Choose the radio button for “Gather only local data (do not process rules). 
10.  Move this new task beneath the Use Toolkit Package task.
11.  From the Task Sequence Editor Install Software section, select the software package you like to have installed only on laptops (VPN software for example).
12.  Click the Options tab.
13.  Click Add Condition.
14.  Select If Statement.
15.  In the If Statement Properties page, select All Conditions.
16.  Highlight the line you just added beneath the “This group/step will run if the following conditions are met:”.
17.  Click “Add Condition” again.
18.  Choose Task Sequence Variable.
19.  In the Task Sequence Variable properties page, type isLaptop for the Variable, leaving the Condition set to equals and type TRUE for the Value.Remember, you also have isDesktop and isServer options to use as well.
20.  Save your Task Sequence.

I hope you’ll find this useful. Enjoy!

While attempting to install the User State Migration Toolkit on a Windows Server 2008 system, you will be presented with an error stating that “There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.”

This problem has been noted on the USMT team blog.

When you click the OK button on the error message the USMT301 folder will be erased. However, as a workaround to obtaining the source files to build a USMT package for operating system deployment with Configuration Manager, you can keep the error message up, copy the source files from the C:\Program Files\USMT301 folder to another destination. Just make sure to do this prior to clicking OK. Otherwise, they’re gone!